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Rudd appointed work and pensions secretary
Amber Rudd has been appointed work and pensions secretary.
The former home secretary – who resigned in April after it emerged she had misled MPs over the Windrush scandal – replaces Esther McVey.
Ms McVey handed in her notice on Thursday as a response to Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
As work and pensions secretary, Ms Rudd will oversee the implementation of Universal Credit, the government’s flagship welfare reform programme.
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Universal Credit rolls six benefits into one payment and is intended to mimic a salary.
However, the programme has been riddled with administrative problems and has been widely criticised for causing hardship to claimants.
Ms Rudd, who is MP for Hastings and Rye, told the BBC on Friday she had seen Universal Credit “transform lives” in her constituency but that she “recognised there had been some issues with it”.
She said that as work and pensions secretary she will “iron out those difficulties and make it a force wholly for good”.
